Review: Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ – In Control

Mytek is a manufacturer of HiFi and Pro Audio electronics. Their Brooklyn DAC+ is a high end and very versatile DAC/Amp in a small package. Today we’ll learn all about it.

Disclaimer: Mytek supplied the Brooklyn DAC+ on loan for this review. It will be returned after publication. Mytek is not a site advertiser or affiliated with Headfonia. Many thanks for the opportunity and generosity. I’m terribly sorry for the delay.

About Mytek:

Mytek Digital is an American company that manufactures high end electronics for the professional and HiFi audio scene alike. They are active since the early Nineties and have made themselves a name for their pro gear and I’ve seen many studios use their products. However, their HiFi focussed range hasn’t been overlooked. Mytek has gained quite a reputation for their DACs and amplifiers.

Mytek has a small family of HiFi products in their Brooklyn series. There’s an amplifier, a pre-amplifier, a network bridge and a DAC/Amp/pre-amp – The Brooklyn DAC+. It is the evolution of Mytek’s former Brooklyn DAC.

When looking at the rear panel of the Brooklyn DAC+ one must admit, it’s packed with features. It has an analogue input, which can be used either as line level or phono (MM/MC) input. If you are using the phono input, there’s of course a ground screw to prevent humming.

There are several digital inputs. A USB B socket to be used with your computer. This USB in put though double acts for stacking of multiple Mytek units, for the event that you want to run them in multi-channel mode. Two RCA coaxial inputs, which also accept DSD64 via DoP. You also get an optical input as well as an AES/EBU (XLR) input.

Mytek Brooklyn DAC+

Here comes the fun part, you can also route all digital inputs to be outputted by the USB socket and record everything with your computer. So you can also use the Brooklyn DAC+ as a recorder.

Output wise we are looking at a pair of unbalanced RCA’s and a pair of balanced XLR sockets. These can be used as line or pre-amplifier output. There is one more input on the back panel, a 2.5mm Trigger input. With this one you can automatically turn the unit on/off if it’s in a trigger chain of gear. This one accepts a command (trigger) from other devices in the chain to turn on or off. There are two word clock BNC sockets, one for in put and one for output.

We also have a dedicated 12V DC power input, for those of us who want to use an external linear power supply with the DAC+. We will go over this option a little later, when we find out how the Mytek performs with one of those.

Front seated we two 6.35mm headphone outputs, a display in the middle and a pair of buttons each left and right from it. On the right hand side you have a 360° rotating knob for volume and control of the settings. The headphone ouptuts can be used either to run two separate pairs of cans in single ended mode, or it can be used in balanced mode with a 4P XLR to dual 6.35mm adapter.

Personally, I would have opted for a dual 3 Pin XLR/6.35mm combo plug, as this type of balanced termination is more common in the headphone world. It would make connecting a pair of headphones balanced much easier in my opinion. However, I am not sure if they would fit in the layout of the front plate as it is now.

Mytek Brooklyn DAC+

The headphone outputs offer a zero Ohm output impedance, according to their website. I assume this means it is adjusting the impedance according to the headphones connected. Mytek has rated the output power of it at six Watts and calls it a Reference High Current, High transient Headphone Amplifier.

The DAC+ offers sample rate support for PCM 24/384 and DSD256. For those who like it, the DAC+ also brings full hardware decoded MQA to the table. It uses a single ESS9028Pro eight-channel chip for d/a conversion and has an internal proprietary Mytek Femtoclock Generator, which gives jitter values of only 0.82 Picoseconds.

The Brooklyn DAC+ retails for 2,195 USD and can be aquired either directly from Mytek’s online store or from one of their many retailers offline.

A daytime code monkey with a passion for audio and his kids, Linus tends to look at gear with a technical approach, trying to understand why certain things sound the way they do. When there is no music around, Linus goes the extra mile and annoys the hell out of his colleagues with low level beatboxing.